Domain investing tips, strategies, and industry insights
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Finding real end users is the part of domain investing that separates hobbyists from professionals. Anyone can register names or win auctions. The hard work starts when you actually have to sell the damn things. I spent my first few years carpet-bombing every company that vaguely related to my domains. Generic info@ emails. Hundred-name lists. Templates I thought were clever.
Fred Mercaldo is one of those names that carries real weight in domaining, particularly for anyone who has spent time around premium city .coms and long-term digital real estate. Long before "digital real estate" became a buzz phrase, Fred was already acquiring, building, and operating domains as real businesses, not just assets to park or flip.
Every few years someone declares domain investing dead. I've been hearing it since I started. The dot-com crash hangover. The 2008 recession. When Facebook took over the world and nobody needed websites anymore, remember that? The flood of new TLDs that was supposed to kill .com. The pandemic. Now it's AI that's going to make domains irrelevant. Same song, different decade.
Here is one phrase that will quietly ruin your sell-through rate, your negotiating position, and your sanity. "Open to offers." It sounds harmless. It sounds flexible. It sounds like you are easy to work with. In reality, it makes you invisible. Here is what most domain investors miss: buyers do not reward uncertainty. They avoid it. When someone lands on your page and sees "make an offer" or "open to offers," you are not inviting a conversation.
I came across Enhance.com about two weeks back and immediately stopped scrolling. Not because I knew what the company did , I honestly didn't, but because the domain itself grabbed me. Enhance. Single dictionary word. Strong, positive meaning. The kind of premium domain that makes you wonder: who owns this, and how did they get it?
Most domain investors can tell you what a "good" name is. Short. Clean. .com. No weird spelling. But a "good" name and a name that actually pulls inbound inquiries are not always the same thing. Inbound is a buyer raising their hand. That is different from an investor nodding in approval. Your job is to spot names that get emailed about, not names that win debates.
The country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla that has become extremely popular for artificial intelligence companies and projects.
A generic top-level domain (gTLD) operated by Google, designed for mobile applications and app developers.
A generic top-level domain for communities, organizations, and membership-based groups.
A generic top-level domain suitable for any internet-based business or presence.
A generic top-level domain designed for e-commerce and retail businesses.
A generic top-level domain targeting the technology sector.